Sooner or later we obtained the desired data from 20 of the 26 libraries to which this letter was sent. Only one, the Grosvenor Library of Buffalo, returned no answer. Five declined on various grounds. The California State library wrote to us: "We do not feel satisfied with our present arrangements and do not believe we are in a position to offer any suggestions that would be of service in connection with this investigation." The Mercantile library of New York wrote: "We regret that we find ourselves unable to co-operate with your committee in this undertaking." The librarian of Trinity college, Hartford, writes that "with the exception of student assistants the librarian is the entire staff." The senior regent of Shurtleff college, Alton, Ill., writes: "Our building is not yet complete and in the management of the old, we are so nearly without a system that I hardly feel it worth while to try to reply to these questions." The librarian of the New York Engineering Societies writes: "This library * * * has no charging system. Its system of accessioning will be abandoned as soon as possible. I suggest that you enter another library on your list."
Replies such as these seem to imply a misconception of the nature and purposes of a survey. Our object is to ascertain facts, not to gather a selected number of ideal cases.
For these five libraries the following were substituted:
- Westminster College, Fulton, Mo.
- Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
- Washington State Library.
- New York Society Library.
- Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.
These furnished that data for which we asked, with the exception of the Washington State library, which declined. We have material, therefore, from 24 libraries altogether.
The last of this body of data comes to hand just as this preliminary report goes to press, but it is being digested and tabulated and some of the results, at least, will be ready for the Ottawa meeting, although there will not be time for any study of these results or for recommendations based thereon.
The reports from the various libraries will be on file at headquarters at Ottawa and will be accessible to all members of the association who desire to consult them.
Regarding the question of the counting of circulation through traveling libraries, deposits and the like, which has been referred to your committee, we beg to report as follows:—
The sending of books from a library to a school, a club, or some other place where they are to be used or circulated may be regarded in two ways by librarians. It may be held that the sending of the books from the library is itself an act of circulation or that the place to which they are sent for use or distribution is a temporary station of the library, and that sending books thereto is no more circulation than if they were sent to a library branch or delivery station. Obviously, if the former view is accepted, no use that is made of the book after it reaches the station can be recorded by the library. When we have lent a book to a reader we do not inquire how many persons in the family use it or whether a neighbor borrows it. The library borrower is responsible for it and it simply counts as one in the issue. But if the place to which it goes is to be treated as a station, then the use of the book at or from that station is part of the library record. If it is used in the school, club, or other place where it is deposited, such use is not circulation, however, but hall or library use, as if it had been used in a branch library. If it is issued from the station for home use, such issues, and every such issue, is properly counted with the circulation.